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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23860858">In Which Jason Actually Tries to be a Good Brother For Once</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds/pseuds/Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds'>Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Jason Todd is trying to be a good brother (ish), POV Alternating, Swearing, Tim Drake is Bad at Self-Care, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Tim Drake is sleep-deprived</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:22:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,311</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23860858</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds/pseuds/Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim Drake is extremely sleep deprived, trying to get to the bottom of a case. Jason pops round to get a hand on one of his cases. Or just annoy him. Either/or really. But when he sees just how sleep-deprived Replacement is, he decides to help out. If only his good intentions were actually helpful...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>143</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So another Tim Drake-centric Batman one-shot I didn't really intend to write. Not set in a specific canon. Tim is Red Robin. Jason is on vaguely good terms with the Batfam (or at least isn't actively trying to kill them).  Damian is no longer trying to actively kill Tim either</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>So. It had been a while since Tim last slept. He wasn't entirely sure how long? Two or three days? Maybe? It had certainly been a while, if the growing crowd of coffee cups on his desk were anything to go by. He just needed to solve this case, then he would sleep. He might even treat himself and get a full six hours.</p><p> </p><p>He looked up, and Bruce was there, standing in the corner of his safe-house. <em>When did he get here?</em> He started talking about the case, but wasn't really saying anything useful. Or anything Tim didn't already know. <em><strong>Is</strong> he here?</em> Maybe Tim was hallucinating. Wouldn't be the first time. That would probably put back the last time he slept to four or five days ago at least. Tim indulged maybe-Bruce for a while, trying to figure out if he was actually there. But then he smiled at Tim. <em>Definitely a hallucination then.</em> Tim lobbed a cardboard coffee cup at him (emptied of its precious contents, well, probably days ago). Sure enough, the cup went straight through hallucination-Bruce, hitting the wall behind and falling to the floor. When Tim looked back up again, Bruce had gone.</p><p> </p><p>Tim looked back to his laptop. If he was hallucinating now, he needed to get on and solve the case, whilst his mind was still at least half-functioning.</p><p> </p><p>After a short while (or a long while? Who really knew anymore?), Tim reached out automatically for his coffee. However, when he brought the warm beverage to his mouth, and took a gulp, he paused. <em>When did I make this?</em> The drink was warm, so he must of made it recently, but he couldn't recall doing. <em>I definitely need this then, if I'm so tired I can't even remember making it</em>. He downed the rest of the cup.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Jason was bored. He'd struck a bust with his current case, and just couldn't seem to find a lead. So he figured he'd go and track Replacement down. Either the kid would be able to help him find a lead he'd missed (Jason kind of hated when the little nerd did that, but he had to admit, it was useful), or he could entertain himself pissing him off. Win-win.</p><p> </p><p>He'd not seen him on the streets for a few nights, and there'd been nothing on the Timothy Drake-Wayne Stalkers' twitter page either (not the official title but an accurate description; Jason followed it as it often provided good ammunition for teasing), which meant the kid had probably gone to ground, focussed on a case. When that happened, he tended to bunker down in his favourite safe-house, rather than his apartment or the Manor. So that would be the best place to look first.</p><p> </p><p>Jason let himself in through the bathroom window. The place was a mess, even by Drake's slovenly standards. He headed into the main room. Sure, Jason had made a quiet entrance, but he would still have expected Replacement to notice. He was Bat-trained after all. But the kid just kept typing away at his laptop. If the number of coffee cups surrounding him was anything to go by, it had been a <strong>long</strong> time since he'd last slept. Jason would have to tell him off (or gloat in his face) for sleep deprivation clouding his awareness.</p><p> </p><p>Replacement started staring at a blank patch of wall, which seemed a bit odd. Worse was when he started talking to it. <em>Has he been drugged? Or is he just so tired he's hallucinating?</em> Hopefully the second, but he wouldn't be surprised about either. Regardless, the kid <strong>really</strong> needed to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>Jason went over to what passed for a kitchen in this safe-house (basically where Drake kept his kettle, coffee, and very little else). The kid was clearly not planning on going to sleep on his own accord, so Jason would have to make him. He managed to find a sad-looking jar of decaf coffee abandoned at the back of the cupboard. He poured some in a cup (<em>how many cups does he own?</em> There was already so many on his desk. <em>Has he not heard of washing up?</em>), added water from the kettle he'd set boiling, then spiked it with a good dose of sedatives. <em>That should do the job. </em></p><p> </p><p>He crept nearer to Drake whilst the boy was busy staring blankly at his computer, and managed (somehow) to deposit the cup next to him without him noticing. He stood back and watched, smirking proudly to himself when the kid took the cup and downed it.</p><p> </p><p>He headed into the other room of the safe-house whilst he waited for the drugs to kick in, wanting to check that the kid did indeed own a bed, and that it wasn't covered with case files and other crap that doesn't belong on a bed. Once he'd cleared the bed (Replacement did own one! He just apparently didn't know how to use it...), he scrounged around until he found a vaguely clean pair of trackies and a T-shirt. Replacement had been sat at his desk in his Red Robin suit (minus the cowl, which had been chucked in a heap along with his bow staff and grapple), and Jason didn't want to know how long he'd been wearing that for. Maybe he'd confiscate it, so the kid couldn't wake up from his forced nap and go running straight out onto the streets. Maybe he'd even drop it at the Manor (in a drop-it-on-the-doorstep-and-run kind of way; no chance was he going in) so Alfred could fumigate it.</p><p> </p><p>He headed back out, expecting to find a sleeping idiot he could chuck into bed, and then vaguely lecture on self-preservation whenever he'd slept off his sizable sleep-debt. Instead he found an empty room. No Timmy. And no cowl, bow staff or grapple either.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Oh shit.</em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He'd cracked it! Tim had finally cracked it! After who knows how many days (he certainly didn't know how many), he'd finally solved the case. Now he just needed to get out there and take down the culprits. He was starting to feel like absolute shit, but he was so nearly there. As soon as he had them rounded up and in police company, he could go to bed. He was so nearly there.</p><p> </p><p>He grabbed his stuff, shoved his cowl over his head, and leaped out of the window, grappling to the next roof.</p><p> </p><p>The further he got, the more he seemed to be flagging. <em>Almost there! Just need to keep going!</em> He knew his pace wasn't what it usually was, but he just needed to persevere. He stumbled on a roof top, not sticking the landing, and had to stagger to avoid falling on his face. His body just seemed to want to lie down.</p><p> </p><p><em>No!</em> He slapped himself across the face. <em>Pull yourself together Drake!</em> He could sleep when the job was complete, not before. He shot his grapple and once again leaped off the building. But as he swung, he could feel his eyelids drooping, and his grip loosening on the grapple gun. He was falling. But his mind was sinking too far into the darkness to care.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>How had Replacement managed to sneak away from him so quickly? And how was he still awake? The kid had looked like he should have been able to fall asleep at a drop of a hat even before Jason had stuck a shit-tonne of sedatives in his drink. He needed to find him, because even if the kid was still vertical now, he wouldn't be for long.</p><p> </p><p>He took off out of the window, heading North (the direction Replacement was most likely to be heading in, considering that's where the biggest criminal element was [not to deny the fact the whole cesspool of a city was a crime hotspot]).</p><p> </p><p>"Oracle!" he demanded into his comm (the one the Bats' had given him, and he rarely used). "Where's Red Robin?"</p><p>"Hood!?" the familiar modulated voice replied, "What's going on?"</p><p>"I don't have time, Goddammit! Where's Replacement!?" he bellowed. "He's in danger!" he added after a second of no reply.</p><p>"He's currently on a roof on the corner of 9th and 12th, heading North-North West. What's happening?"</p><p>"I don't have time now, O. I'll fill you in later." With that, he turned off the comm, increasing his speed and leaping to the next roof along. From what she said, Replacement was still on the go, so he was still on his feet. Surely that couldn't last much longer. Even if he was more coffee than blood now, the caffeine couldn't counteract the sedatives forever.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, he got him in his sights, only a couple of rooftops away. The boy was starting to flounder, if the massive stumble he made on landing was anything to go by. <em>Just give up, you idiot! Give in! Fall asleep!</em> But no, even though he was clearly barely clinging to consciousness, the kid fired off his grapple and swung off the building.</p><p> </p><p>Jason knew what was going to happen before he saw it. He was already in the air, swinging towards him, as he watched in horror as the boy went limp, his consciousness failing at the worst possible moment, arms letting go of the one thing keeping him up, and gravity pulling his body down.</p><p> </p><p>Jason collided roughly with the kid in mid-air, no way to change their trajectory before they swung violently into the side of a building, the impact sending shockwaves through Jason's body. It took everything he had to cling on to his grabble gun, and to Drake's limp body. His shoulder killed. It probably wasn't dislocated, but the stunt certainly hadn't done it any good.</p><p> </p><p>He hung dangling in mid-air for a short while, before realising he probably should lower them to the ground before his shoulder really did give up the ghost. Drake was unmoving in his arms. Jason hoped he was just knocked out by the sedatives, but he had taken the main brunt of the collision with the building. He could have a head injury or internal bleeding.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>"Jason, what's going on!?" a familiar voice shouted. Jason looked up, from where he was sitting on the ground, holding Replacement's limb form and trying to catch his own breath. <em>When did Dickhead get here?</em></p><p>"Did you kill Drake?" a second voice demanded, with a possible hint of amusement. <em>Apparently the mini-Demon's here too.</em></p><p>"No, I didn't kill him. I just saved his ass."</p><p>"What happened?" Nightwing asked. "Oracle said you said he was in danger?"</p><p>"Okay, yes, so that bit might have been a teeny tiny bit my fault. But only because I'd been trying to save him from himself..."</p><p>"What did you do!?"</p><p>"So I might have spiked his drink..."</p><p>"You tried to poison him?" Robin scoffed. "Tt. Poison is a coward's method."</p><p>"Didn't you once try to poison him?" Jason retorted. "But no, I wasn't trying to poison him. I was genuinely trying to help him for once."</p><p>"What did you do?" Dick asked again, slightly less forcefully.</p><p>"I snuck into his safe-house where I discovered he'd not slept for, I don't know, probably about a week. So I did the only logical thing. I put sedatives in his coffee. You'd have done it too, he was literally talking to the walls. It'd have worked out fine, he'd be having a nice nap right now, if he hadn't escaped and gone swinging round the city. I had to catch him when he gave up on consciousness mid-grapple and decided to have a rendezvous with the ground. Really fucked my shoulder up doing so. <em>You're welcome</em> by the way."</p><p> </p><p>"The Batmobile's on it's way", Dick announced, after pausing to likely listen to Oracle. "Let's get him back to the cave. You can explain what you were thinking there, once we know he's okay." Jason was about to say <em>hell no</em>, but Nightwing looked surprisingly fierce, so he acquiesced. <em>Guess I'm heading to the Batcave then. That'll teach me for trying to help...</em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I know the ending is a bit sudden. I might add some more sometime maybe. But I wanted to keep the story as a short one-shot, rather than dragging it out.</p><p>Edit: I've already started head-canoning what happens next, so there will probably be at least some kind of follow-up</p><p>Edit (again): So as you can see, I'd added that follow up chapter...</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So I said I might add another chapter, because the story ended a bit suddenly. So for better or worse, here one is.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Alfred!" Dick shouted as he climbed out of the Batmobile, helping Jason bundle Tim out of the back seat.</p>
<p>"What happened!?" the old butler asked, hurrying alongside them across to the medbay.</p>
<p>"Todd poisoned him, then slammed him into a building," Damian answered, catching them up after parking up his bike.</p>
<p>"I didn't <em>poison</em> him!" Jason insisted. "And I was stopping him from falling to his death, so..."</p>
<p>"Why don't you explain what happened?" Alfred asked, multi-tasking and connecting monitoring equipment to Tim at the same time. "Master Damian, can you go fetch the scanner for me?" <em>Yes, get the Demon out of the way, to stop him interrupting...</em></p>
<p>"So I went round to Drake's safe-house because I needed a hand with a case." [<em>Let's just not mention the 'and to annoy him' bit</em>]. "And he clearly hadn't slept in days. <em>Days</em>. Believe me, you wouldn't have been impressed. So I decided what he needed was the old Alfred-special." The man frowned at the eponymising of the technique to him, but didn't look like he disagreed with the idea itself. "It would all have been fine. He'd be catching up on his needed sleep now, if he hadn't managed to run off out of the window when I left him alone for 2 minutes."</p>
<p>"What did you give him?" Jason pulled the empty bottle out of his jacket pocket to show him.</p>
<p>"You gave him all that!?" Dick exclaimed. "He'll be asleep for a week!"</p>
<p>"Pah. It's not that much. He'll be up within 12 hours, I'll bet you."</p>
<p>"You said he left through the window?" Alfred asked, looking at them pointedly to suggest he would not be tolerating them making bets right now.</p>
<p>"Yeah. So I got O to track him, because I knew he'd soon be flagging. The problem was that he decided to pass out mid-grapple. I caught him of course, but there was, well, quite an impact with a building. There wasn't any way to avoid it."</p>
<p>"Well, his vitals are steady, and I can't feel any fractures, but we'll do a scan to check there isn't any internal damage."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Oh my!" Alfred exclaimed, once he'd started the scan.</p>
<p>"What!?" Dick asked worriedly.</p>
<p>"Has Todd ruptured Drake's spleen or something?" Damian inquired, sounding more fascinated than worried.</p>
<p>"No. In fact, that would apparently not even be possible."</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"It appears Master Tim's spleen is... missing."<br/> </p>
<p>"How can it be missing?" Dick asked.</p>
<p>"Well, sometimes people have their spleen removed, for various reasons. Disease, infection, trauma..." Damian began. "But considering the fact this is not mentioned in his file" [<em>has the little bastard been snooping in all our medical files!?</em>], "it must be fairly recent".</p>
<p>"Jason, did you know?"</p>
<p>"Why on Earth would I know, if none of you even do!?"</p>
<p>"You talk sometimes."</p>
<p>"Yeah, like, 'what do you think about this case?'. Never 'oh hey, I just had a major organ removed, in case you were interested'."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"So apart from missing a spleen, is Drake otherwise intact internally?" Damian asked, actually getting them back on track.</p>
<p>"Yes, I can't see any signs of bleeding," Alfred announced, "We'll monitor him, but I think he should be just fine."</p>
<p>"Hear that Todd? Your roundabout attempt to kill him failed."</p>
<p>"I <em>wasn't</em> trying to kill him. Honestly, if this is the bother I get when I try to help one of you people, maybe I should go back to trying to kill you."</p>
<p>"Don't even joke about that Master Jason!" Alfred scolded.</p>
<p>"<em>I wasn't joking</em>," Jason muttered to himself.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>14 hours later (meaning Jason would have lost that bet), Tim suddenly woke up. He sat up, surprised to find himself in the Batcave medbay. <em>How did I get here?</em> He thought back. Last thing he could remember, he was trying to solve his case. Wait, no, he <strong>did</strong> solve it. He'd gone to go hunt down the criminals responsible. He couldn't remember doing so though. Did he do? Did he get injured doing so? He didn't feel injured. Maybe a little bruised, but that wasn't unusual. And a bit groggy, but he felt like he'd been asleep longer than he normally slept, so maybe that was why.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Timmy!" Dick called, running over from the other side of the Batcave. "You're awake!"</p>
<p>"What happened? How did I get here?"</p>
<p>"Well, Jason kind of broke into your safe-house whilst you were deep in your no-sleep binge." [This was new information, but not surprising to Tim in the slightest]. "And he took it upon himself to slip some sedatives into your coffee because he knew you wouldn't go to sleep anytime soon on your own." <em>The bastard! It must have been that coffee I didn't remember making! I knew it seemed suspicious! (Coffee, how could you betray me so!?)</em>. "But then you left the building without him realising. So he chased after you. And he ended up having to catch you when you passed out mid-grapple." <em>Well, that's just embarrassing. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>"What time is it?" Tim asked after a short while.</p>
<p>"It's about 1pm. On Sunday."</p>
<p>"Ah right." Tim paused. "How long have I been out?" (because he'd lost track of what day it was, well, days ago).</p>
<p>"About 14 hours," Dick replied fondly. "I think Alfred will be nearly done with lunch, if you're hungry? Or do you want to go back to sleep?"</p>
<p>"I've slept plenty. I've things I need to be doing. Like catching the criminals I've been after all week, because apparently Jason interrupted me just before I had chance to actually apprehend them after all my hard work."</p>
<p>"Don't worry. Bruce and Steph took them in."</p>
<p>"How?"</p>
<p>"Well, Babs hacked your laptop, as we were curious what was so important you'd go days without sleep. And so we read your notes and they went and picked them up."</p>
<p>"Your filing system is atrocious, Drake," Damian drawled, wandering into the medbay.</p>
<p>"Stay out of my files, Demon."</p>
<p>"Don't start fighting!" Dick begged, "things have been nice and friendly!"</p>
<p>"Which is surprising, considering Todd was here..."</p>
<p>"Jason was here?" Tim asked, surprised. It was rare that Jason would permit himself to step foot inside the Manor.</p>
<p>"Yes, but he fled when he heard Father was returning. The coward."</p>
<p>"You should thank Jason next time you see him," Dick told Tim, choosing to ignore Damian's comment.</p>
<p>"For drugging me?"</p>
<p>"For caring."</p>
<p>"Oh yes, of course," he replied, sarcastically.</p>
<p>"If you were better at taking care of yourself, he wouldn't have had to," Damian proclaimed. "Like maybe you wouldn't have misplaced your spleen."</p>
<p>"Oi! I..." Tim started to angrily protest, but then realised what his 'brother' had just said. "Oh, you know about that?"</p>
<p>"Why didn't you tell us Tim?" Dick asked.</p>
<p>"It never came up."</p>
<p>"What happened?"</p>
<p>"Oh, some Council of Spiders assassin stabbed me."</p>
<p>"You say that like it's no big deal!"</p>
<p>"Well, it's not really. I mean sure, it hurt a lot at the time, but Ra's patched me up..."</p>
<p>"Wait, <em>Grandfathe</em>r patched you up?" Damian inquired, astonished.</p>
<p>"Well, not him personally. He had some of his ninjas do it."</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>"Because he was still trying to get me to join him at the time. It was when I was off looking for Bruce. So ages ago."</p>
<p>"Why didn't you say anything?" Dick asked again.</p>
<p>"Like I said, it didn't come up. Now, this has been fun, but I have meetings tomorrow I need to go prepare for, so I'll be off."</p>
<p>"You can't leave now! You need to eat something at least!"</p>
<p>"I <em>can</em> leave right now."</p>
<p>"Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne. If you go anywhere but up those stairs to the dining room to eat Sunday dinner with us, then I'll set Alfred on you."</p>
<p>"Oh, fine," he acquiesced. "I suppose I can spare another hour."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So this almost certainly is the end of the fic now. I'm not sure about this chapter, and whether it matches the tone of the first (and whether it's just a re-hashing of things that have been written before, like the whole 'Tim has no spleen' thing), but at least the endng feels more rounded to me.<br/>You may notice Bruce makes zero actual appearances. That's because I can't seem to write him.</p>
<p>Anyhow, hope you enjoyed. I welcome any feedback (as long as it's at least semi-constructive)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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